Cambodia Flood Victims Receive Food, Supplies

Monday, October 31, 2011
CBNNews.com

Severe flooding in Cambodia now affects 17 of the country's 24 provinces.

Volunteer teams from CBN International are working to get relief packages to victims.

Many of the aid recipients are farmers. The roads surrounding their remote villages are too flooded to allow them to reach food and other supplies.

Vietnamese-Americans voice gospel to villagers on Cambodian Lake

Albert Barajas, 36, a dentist from Dallas, trains an 11-year-old to sterilize equipment during a dental clinic in a floating village on Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake. (IMB PHOTOS)

Kristy Harless, Gina Nguyen and Lynne Leung visit boat-to-boat to assess medical needs in the floating village of Kbal Taol on Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake. (IMB PHOTOS)

June 23, 2011
By Staff
International Mission Board

KBAL TAOL, Cambodia—For a moment, Josh Nguyen thought he was back in Vietnam. Rubbing the wooden floor of a floating home in this remote village on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, the 44-year-old physician from Houston remembered the country he left as a refugee in 1975.

Nguyen joined a team of nine other medical and dental volunteers working with the Vietnamese living in floating villages on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. He and three nurses divided into two groups and visited from boat to boat, assessing medical needs and sharing the Gospel. Nguyen, who speaks Vietnamese, also translated for the nurse who assisted him.

The trip was revealing to Nguyen, who saw himself not only in the floorboards but also in the faces and experiences of those he met on the lake.

Glimpses of heaven — and hell — in Cambodia

A Buddhist temple, or wat, in rural Cambodia near Phnom Penh (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

September 2, 2010
By Erik Tryggestad
The Christian Chronicle

Just after finishing our Global South feature on Cambodia, “Life, death and rebirth in The Killing Fields,” I left on an Africa reporting trip. So I didn’t get the chance to share some insights from my visit to Cambodia earlier this year.

I flew to Phnom Penh, the capital, from Singapore and stayed for a few days before traveling northwest to Siem Reap, where I made a brief visit to the Angkor of Faith 4 youth camp. While in Phnom Penh, I stayed at the home of Rich and Ronda Dolan. They moved to Cambodia a few years ago to work with the Cambodia Bible Institute, a satellite campus of Lubbock, Texas-based Sunset International Bible Institute. Rich is the former youth and family minister for the Broken Arrow, Okla., Church of Christ, so we spent some time talking about mutual friends in the Sooner state.

Dennis and Sharon Welch (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

I also met Dennis and Sharon Welch, who also help with the institute. Dennis was an air-traffic controller in Dallas for 20 years before enrolling in Sunset’s mission program in Lubbock. Joy and Lynn McMillon interviewed him in 2007 for a feature on Sunset. It was nice to see him and his wife at work in the mission field.

The Welches are transitioning into a new ministry role. They will oversee the rural nutrition program I wrote about in the Cambodia feature. The program, which provides nutrition and education for 1,600 children in 11 villages, formerly was overseen by Arkansas-based Partners in Progress.

Now the Central Church of Christ in Stockton, Calif., is taking over support of the ministry.

I got to see the nutrition program firsthand while I was in Cambodia. I took some photos and video of happy children lining up to get a nutritious snack from the Cambodian Christians who work with the program. My favorite part was watching the Cambodians hold up flash cards with words like “ear” and “nose” and teaching the children how to say and spell them in English.

Snacks in hand, girls in rural Cambodia are all smiles. (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

Troy Snowbarger took me from village to village as he showed me the program in action. He and his wife, Tabitha, have overseen the program for a few years, but plan to return to the States to pursue master’s degrees. They formerly worked with the Peace Corps in East Timor. (I’m guessing they were the first Church of Christ members to set foot in that tiny, impoverished nation, but I could be wrong about that.)

Troy Snowbarger watches as children line up for snacks in rural Cambodia. (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

The Central Church of Christ already has funds committed to oversight of the nutrition program, but more money is needed. If anyone is interested in helping out, please contact the church. (Check out Dennis and Sharon’s blog for more information.)

Church members also teach English using the Bible to Cambodian students in Phnom Penh.

I visited a ministry center where volunteers were doing just that, using the World English Institute curriculum. Partners in Progress had oversight of the program at the time, but in the months since that has changed.

Now the program is called Bible English Study and Training, or BEST. Julie Broyles oversees the program, and she’s looking for teachers to come to Cambodia on short-term mission trips. Contact World English Institute for more info. (Julie is Ronda Dolan’s sister, by the way. They both grew up in Thailand, where their father, Loren Hollingsworth, served as a missionary for 30-plus years.)

Cell block at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

In the Cambodia feature, I wrote about Sokhom Hun, the Cambodian-born minister who endured prison and torture at the hands of the brutal Khmer Rouge.

While I was in Phnom Penh I visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial. It’s a former school that became the infamous S-21 prison during the Khmer Rouge years. Vietnamese troops discovered the prison when they ran the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh in 1979. They took photos of the dead bodies strapped to iron bed frames in former classrooms that had become torture chambers.

Those photos hang on the walls of the rooms in which they were taken. The bed frames and the torture implements are still there. The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous notes and photos of the people they imprisoned and murdered there. The photos are on display in the museum. You can see the terror behind the prisoners’ blank stares. An estimated 17,000 people entered those walls and never left.

I can barely put into words what walking through that museum was like. A Cambodian walked up to me while I was looking in one of the rooms.

“Where you from?” he asked, in broken English. I told him I was from Oklahoma.

“This my first time,” he said. Then he shuddered and pointed to his forearms.

I knew what he meant — goosebumps. I had them too.

An interrogation room at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

While preparing the report on Cambodia, I was blessed to come across “Survival in the Killing Fields” by Haing Ngor with Roger Warner. Ngor won an Oscar for his portrayal of Cambodian journalist Dith Pran in the 1984 film “The Killing Fields.” Ngor himself was a physician in Cambodia who was tortured repeatedly by the Khmer Rouge. (In fact, what he endured during the regime makes Dith Pran’s experiences seem almost mild.) Ngor is a tragic figure (he was killed in 1996 in an apparent robbery) and his insights into the paranoid mentality of the Khmer Rouge really helped me to understand the regime — as much as it is possible to do so. The parts of the book that deal with torture are graphic, but it’s a compelling read. I highly recommend it.

Armed with love and laughter, Granite Bay missionaries take on child sex trade in Cambodia

Students crowd into a classroom to learn English at Rahab's House in Svay Pak, Cambodia. Fourteen members of Granite Bay's Bayside Church spent two weeks this summer working at a former brothel converted into a community center by a Rocklin couple. (All photos: BRYAN PATRICK bpatrick@sacbee.com)
Chang Thy Mean, 24, a former child prostitute rescued by a U.S. nonprofit, now makes $70 a month as a tailor. "I felt my life had no value," she said. "I'm happy now."

Monday, Aug. 16, 2010
By Stephen Magagnini - smagagnini@sacbee.com
The Sacramento Bee (California, USA)

"Police here do not cooperate – they don't like us" Chanta Hem, Cambodian pastor at Rahab's House

SVAY PAK, Cambodia – Two white vans roll up to a converted brothel at 8:30 a.m., and 14 Sacramento-area soldiers of Christ spill out to battle a barrage of physical and spiritual ailments.

They'll minister to pimps, dope peddlers and parents who seem to love alcohol and gambling more than they love their children, whose bodies are sold nightly for as little as $3 – less than the price of a bowl of grapes.

Waves of those children and their brothers, sisters and cousins inundate the missionaries with hugs, smiles and laughter. Little girls fly into their arms to be held.

"This hell hole is now a place of joy!" exclaimed Barbara Wilson, a trauma counselor leading the team from Bayside Church in Granite Bay. "Three years ago there was nothing here – now there are 150 kids."

The Bayside missionaries – teachers, computer experts, moms, a nurse and a respiratory therapist who each paid $3,500 to get here – spent 14 days this summer at Rahab's House, a former brothel named after a biblical prostitute who gave sanctuary to Israeli spies. A Rocklin couple have converted the brothel into a nonprofit community center, which now houses a free medical clinic, school, church and kids club.

"My main mission is to use love as a weapon, because none of the other methods are working," said Gilbert Acevedo, a beefy, tattooed youth pastor who pumps iron with young men – some of them pimps – at the Lord's Gym across the street from Rahab's House.

Wilson said a pimp who entered Acevedo's "Svay Pak Strong Man" contest promised not to sell girls under 18.

The slow transformation of Svay Pak from the pedophile capital of Cambodia into a fulcrum of hope was launched by Don and Bridget Brewster, who moved from Rocklin to Cambodia in 2005 to save the children after seeing a TV special on child sex slaves here.

Their nonprofit, Agape International Missions, now comprises Rahab's House, the Lord's Gym, a cafe and bakery that employs former sex workers, and the Agape Restoration Center – the initial shelter they created in Phnom Penh for 120 girls rescued from Cambodian brothels. The center has a pool, a school, a dormitory and house moms.

In 2007, the Brewsters trained their sights on Svay Pak – a slum of about 5,000 people six miles north of Phnom Penh, where girls as young as 3 are for sale.

The couple started their ministry there in a brothel that had been closed after two girls died in the "virgin room" and several others died of AIDS, Bridget Brewster said. The back door is cemented shut, and the rooms look like cells, but the building now shelters rescued teens.

A five-story brothel was under construction next door, but the Brewsters partnered with the Ratanak Foundation of Canada to convert it to Rahab's House.

"This was designed to be the best little whorehouse in Svay Pak," said Bridget Brewster, who runs Rahab's House.

Children flock to the kids club to play games with the Bayside team, make Play-Doh elephants, take guitar lessons and learn songs, computer skills, English and Bible stories.

"It's amazing how much you can do with just smiles and laughter," said Michele Dawson, one of the missionaries from Bayside.

Sex trade persists

But at night, many of the children still are sold for sex, said Don Brewster.

The sex trade has created a climate of abuse, he said. Before the Sacramento team arrived, two 12-year-old boys in Svay Pak confessed to raping a 10-year-old Vietnamese girl after watching pornography on a cell phone, the Phnom Penh Post reported. Police did not charge the boys because they are under 14, the newspaper reported.

The girl is now at Agape Restoration Center.

"Police here do not cooperate – they don't like us," said Chanta Hem, the Cambodian pastor at Rahab's House who translates for the missionaries.

Before the Brewsters and other missionaries began to shut down brothels, the pimps paid off police every morning, Hem said.

At least three of Hem's 31 disciples – Cambodian youth who volunteer 40 hours a week for Agape – were sold into prostitution by their parents. Others were raped.

A foreigner pays $300 to $3,000 for a virgin depending upon how pretty she is, Hem said.

Nearly every family in town has sold their girls, Hem said. And traffickers bring more girls bought or stolen from families in rural Vietnam.

"They love money more than the kid," he said. "For gambling, alcohol, drugs."

Cambodia has strong anti-trafficking laws. Don Brewster said he knows of 15 mothers in prison for selling their daughters. "But the traffickers don't get sent to prison, and neither do the fathers," he said.

For $10, some village leaders will change a family birth book to make a girl 16, the legal age of consent, Brewster said. In his office on the top floor of Rahab's House overlooking a field of garbage ringed with clotheslines running from corrugated shacks, Brewster produced a map indicating 11 brothels "that are holding pens for pre-pubescent girls," he said. "There's a group of us who go out and confront pedophiles."

Cambodian authorities, with the FBI and nongovernmental organizations, occasionally catch U.S. pedophiles. Five girls the Brewsters helped rescue testified in Los Angeles against Michael Pepe, a former U.S. Marine convicted in 2008 of molesting seven girls while working part time as a professor at a Cambodian university.

Cambodia is 98 percent Buddhist, and monks are often afraid to take on traffickers. Luis CdeBaca, the State Department's top official in the war on trafficking, said Christian missions are working effectively with Cambodian authorities.

He has been to Svay Pak twice. "I remember a feeling of hope," he said. "That this is not insoluble, that there are Cambodians and foreign folks who want this to change."

The efforts to transform

The strongest weapons in the Brewsters' arsenal are love and good will.

A pimp who exercised at the Lord's Gym daily said he "was raping his own 5- and 9-year-old sisters and the police were doing nothing, so we got custody," Don Brewster said. "We told him, 'We hate what you do, but we want to be your friend.'

"Then at church one Sunday, he stands up and says 'I know what I'm doing is wrong and I'm not going to do it anymore.' We got him a $50-a-month construction job, and he's doing OK."

One 100-degree day during the Bayside missionaries' visit, a cool young woman in a red pantsuit and Dalmatian-print shirt appeared at Rahab's House to design new curtains.

Chang Thy Mean, 24, a former prostitute, learned tailoring at Agape Restoration Center and now makes Hawaiian shirts that Don Brewster wears.

Mean previously sold cakes on the streets of Phnom Penh for 7,000 Cambodian riels a day – $1.65. "It wasn't enough to eat," she said. So at 15, she sold herself in Svay Pak.

A foreigner in his 50s paid $300 for her virginity. "I screamed in pain, and he stopped," she said. "The next time I prepared myself."

Mean sent about $400 home monthly, "but I don't know where the money's going." After five years Mean was rescued by International Justice Mission, a U.S. nonprofit, and sent to the Agape Restoration Center.

"I felt my life had no value. I never thought about my future," she said.

Volunteers at Agape taught her to sew – and to dream. "My dream is to be married, have two kids and have my own shop," said Mean. She is now engaged and makes $70 a month.

At the Bloom Cafe and Bakery, 20 Agape girls earn $120 a month. They recently made a sugar house for the Australian Embassy.

Girls as young as 5 are brought to Agape Restoration Center. Every two months, seven girls visit their moms in prison and take them food and shampoo. "I want to do a class on parenting and marriage," said Bridget Brewster.

Several hundred Cambodians show up daily for free medical care provided by registered nurse Allison Seay and her husband, respiratory therapist Steve Seay of the Bayside team.

"They have aches, pains, high blood pressure, really weak bones, females have vaginal issues," Allison Seay said.

They leave with vitamins, medicine and an invitation to church on Sunday.

Missionaries change, too

At the Bayside Christian team's 7 a.m. service on the roof of the Star Royal Hotel, Steve Seay prayed, "Give us the strength to do our best, and may the seeds that we plant here have a ripple effect."

The Bayside team returned home with a plaque noting their service to the people of Cambodia. The team had visited brick factories, bringing rice, face masks, sandals and candy to emaciated 13-year-olds who look 7.

"In America we're so spoiled," said Roma Moffard, the team's co-leader. "And here they're so joyful with what they have."

Wilson said, upon her return, that in the two weeks in Cambodia she formed relationships with the children and realized she could give them hope.

"It's definitely changed my perspective on what I want to do with my life," said Wilson. "My idea of retirement right now is what I can do to serve people around the world."

Her next stop: India in November.
---------
Bee researchers Pete Basofin and Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.

Poor but hopeful lives in Prey Veng: Touching letter from Fr. Alberto

Cambodian women save the world, in Prey Veng mission

08/12/2010
CAMBODIA
By Alberto Caccaro

Fr Alberto Caccaro, a PIME missionary who has lived in Cambodia for the past ten years, wrote the following letter after a brief holiday in Italy. In it, he describes daily life at his mission, focusing on a woman trying to get a daughter into school, a Christian woman coping with a small child, a blind girl who wants to “feel” close and pray for missionaries.

Prey Veng (AsiaNews) – We are publishing in its entirety a letter Father Alberto sent to his friends in Italy:

“If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it;
blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches[.”1
“Are we here, perhaps, for saying: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit-tree, window –
at most: column, tower . . . .”2

Two days ago, a widowed mother came. She wanted to register her teenage daughter in our school. I saw her arrive on a battered motorbike, skidding, motor sputtering along, but moving nonetheless. They were three on the bike. The woman had a niece, in addition to her daughter, also coming for registration. They were from a not-so distant village, but hard to get to because of a very rough road.

She wore a pair of sunglasses as old as the motorcycle, but useful to hide an eye impairment. I only figured it out after talking to her. Slowly, she told me that to get to the school she had to borrow the bike from a neighbour. And since it had no registration plate, she had to borrow that too from a second neighbour, one with the right sized holes so that it could be properly attached and not give her away to the highway police. Since she had no helmet, which is increasingly becoming a must even in the countryside, she borrowed one from a third neighbour . . . . In order to hide how poor she was, instead of borrowing all three from one person, she borrowed each piece from a different neighbour.

All set and ready to go on her borrowed bike, plate and helmet, she brought the two girls to the school. As she spoke to me, I could not but notice, almost like a background stage to what she was saying, two teeth on her upper dental arch, and one on the lower arch. Nothing more. Yet, she was shooting away, speaking with such passion about her daughter, her niece and their desire to study that I saw in what she lacked what made her a full person, and gave her a sense of being complete.

What Rainer Maria Rilke said is true. We must be able to evoke the richness of what would otherwise appear plain and remain so. I realise that I am not in Prey Veng to achieve big things. I only have to observe and evoke, name the richness that is hiding in the heart of so many poor and limping mothers, . . . on the go, always. “Are we here, perhaps, for saying: house, bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit-tree, window – at most: column, tower”. Bike, plate, helmet . . . Say the name till one evokes,3 and thus rescue from oblivion. Mothers save the world . . . .

Hang had her first child two months ago. Married about a year ago, she became the mother of a beautiful baby boy. Since she had the child, she has not been to Mass. I finally met up with her a few days ago. She told me about her husband, who is not Catholic, and who is often away from home, working far away. He will not be able to be at the baby’s baptism, on the Feast Day of the Assumption. She spoke about her child crying at the night, how no one can sleep, her faraway husband who comes back on rare and short visits, perhaps just one night, before going away. Even on the day the child was born, they called him several times to go back work. Then the birth came, and the sleepless nights . . . .

She did notice one thing though. When the father is back and sleeps at home, the child is all quiet and sleeps. One night, another one of those without dad, powerless to do anything about the child’s cries, she took one of her husband’s shirts and wrapped the babe in it. A few moments later, he stopped crying. “Perhaps,” the young mother said, “my baby recognised his dad’s smell and is soothed by it, as if the father was there.” She tried it again and it worked.

I was moved by the thought that a two-month child could recognise whether his dad was home or not, and express what he felt, crying. I told the woman to explain to her husband that, whilst work is necessary, it could not be used as an excuse to stay away from his son. I don’t know how things will work out in the end, but the little prince cries when his daddy goes away, leaving an empty home of abandoned walls.

Thinking about these two mothers, the words of a contemporary poet came back to me. “Women shall save the world. Of course, fathers shape it, children turn it into an adventure, building it anew. But it is mothers who save it. We see it when times are hard, when conflicts break out, and we do not know what to do. It is then that mothers, some mothers, save it. Their patient sowing and their secret strength guard it and revive it.”4

When I was in Italy, I met a little princess. I was visiting the Giorgio Macchi Elementary School in Somma. I had been invited to speak to 250 children, all at once. When I came into the gym, they called me “friend” several times in so many different languages, and sang a cute refrain, “With my hand in your hand, with my heart in your heart”. Eventually, I spoke, for about an hour, everyone listening carefully. At the end, a girl accompanied by her teacher came towards me. She asked me, “Father Alberto can I take your hands?” I realise then that her head was slightly tilted, the way blind people do. The teacher confirmed it. Stephanie, that is her name, listened to me for an hour, but that was not enough. She wanted to feel if what she heard was true. She grasped my hands. I sat down and she, with unexpected confidence, bent resting on my knee. I thought, “Stephanie, you who can see what I cannot yet see, always say a little prayer for us missionaries.” There and then, I felt the gift of a deep communion. This little princess brought me to a deeper and truer level, one where Church, Family, School and Society are but one, single body, “With my hand in your hand, with my heart in your heart”. I asked the children to sing the song again.

During the months of my stay in Italy, I met so many beautiful people. I will not repeat their names for fear of leaving someone out. I just thank them all; those in the schools, monasteries, parishes that I visited; the priests, nuns, relatives, friends; those who organised parties and those who made sure I saw the sea; the Alpini, the young people of Akuna Matata; the seniors in rest homes and those at Il Girasole centre; those who sang for me and for Cambodia; those who were ill and all those I only met for a brief moment. My thoughts go especially to my elementary school teacher, Ms Franca, whom I had not seen in 30 years. I promise I shall remember everyone when I celebrate the Eucharist every day, in particular those who asked me for special prayers.

The Pope recently said that the “no one who prays is ever alone”. For me, this is true when I celebrate the Eucharist. I experience the importance of the daily celebration as faithfulness in Christ and appeal to be in communion with Him, for this way, in the soul, another life is possible, one that can “understand, know, and love—or better” realise that this is “in her—in the Trinity, together with it, as does the Trinity itself!”5 I celebrate the Eucharist so as not to be alone. With Jesus present, our small church is an enchanting place that re-introduces me to the Mystery.

Often words are not enough for me to say all about what is visible and invisible around me. I feel a deep gratitude and an urgent need to evoke the presence of the Mystery and the Power of the Eternal. “He is here. He is here as on the first day. . . . He is here among us all the days of his eternity.6

For this reason, the mission I am living is dear to me, so is the house in which I live, the church where I pray, the school where we are trying to discover and identify that excess of meaning that every dictatorship, whatever their stripe, fears and stifles. We, instead, are made so that we can say, He is here.

See you soon,

Father Alberto
Prey Veng, 6 August 2010
Transfiguration of the Lord

----------------
[1] Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a young poet (Online edition retrieved on 12 August 2010 at http://www.carrothers.com/rilke1.htm).
[2] Rainer Maria Rilke, Ninth Duino Elegy.
[3] According to my old Italian dictionary, the famous Devoto-Oli, to evoke means “calling something forth from the world of mystery to that of sensory experience”.
[4] Text by Davide Rondoni.
[5] Saint John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle.
[6] Charles Péguy

Missionary to speak on Khmer Rouge experiences

Dareth Ly and his wife, Thida, are Assembly of God missionaries to their native Cambodia. From left are Dareth, Thida, Sophie, 15, Sabrina, 11, and Saidah, 4. Dareth will speak at Crossroads Church Sunday, Nov. 22. Submitted Photo

November 20 2009
By Molly Miron
The Bemidji Pioneer (Minnesota, USA)

Dareth Ly spent his childhood in Cambodia under the deadly 1975-1979 rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

His father was among the 1.5 to 2.5 million people who died directly on the Killings Fields or from starvation and disease.

His mother survived, but they were separated when he was 7 in 1975. He was sent to a child labor camp, and she was sent to an adult labor camp.

When the Vietnamese army liberated the camps in 1979, he walked to Thailand and was put in a refugee camp.

“They didn’t know what to do with us, so they asked different countries to take us,” Ly said in a telephone interview from his Eagan, Minn., home.

He was sent to St. Paul when he was 11 and grew up in a foster home.

“I didn’t speak a word of English,” he said.

He said he had no idea where he was going at the time, but he knew it had to be better than where he was.

Now, with his wife, Thida, he is an Assembly of God missionary to Cambodia. Ly will be the featured speaker Sunday, Nov. 22, at Crossroads Church. Ly will share his story during both the morning worship service at 10:30 a.m. and the Missions Banquet at 5:30 p.m. The Missions Banquet will also feature a potluck, ethnic dinner and a question-and-answer time with Ly. Crossroads Pastor John Hubert and the congregation invite the public to attend.

Ly said he returned to Cambodia and found his mother in 1992. He said she is still living in her home country. He then returned to Cambodia as a missionary in 1996 and began working in an orphanage and starting churches and schools in rural Cambodia. He and his wife have built schools, provided school meals for students, as well as school supplies and uniforms.

“We basically go back and offer the people in that country – who have suffered so much – hope,” Ly said.

He said the Assembly of God as a denomination focuses on mission outreach and is a fast-growing church worldwide. He said he and his wife and daughters, Thida, Saidah and Sabrina, plan to return to Cambodia next summer. Meanwhile, he travels to churches to present the message of what God is doing and raise funds for the mission.

Tyler Couple Reaches Out To Help Child Sex Slaves In Cambodia

Tyler residents Julie and Kenny Rigsby started For The Silent, an advocacy organization supporting ministries freeing child slaves in Cambodia. (Staff Photo By Herb Nygren Jr.)

"We spent a few days in safe home with children living there from 4 to 18 years old rescued from brothels. One day we just spend painting and playing with them. They're learning to be happy again." -- Kenny Rigsby of For The Silent

Saturday, January 17, 2009
By PATRICK BUTLER
Religion Editor
Tyler Paper - Tyler Morning Telegraph (Texas, USA)

Standing in cold artic winds blowing down from Canada through Tyler last week, Kenny Rigsby, 27, blew on his hands and hugged himself. He'd been standing silently in the icy wind for an hour waiting for someone to speak to.

The cold was nothing, Rigsby said, if a single person would break the silence, pick up a pamphlet and change a child's life in Cambodia. He stood behind his information table in front of a 10-foot photo of a Cambodian child, while looking towards the doors of Tyler's Times Square Cinema.

Inside were about 150 "open source activists" watching "Call + Response," the rockumentary film describing vulnerable, young children targeted as sex slaves worldwide. Rigsby hoped some of those activists might throw a lifeline to children he'd seen with his own eyes during trips to Cambodia; children who'd endured years of horrors the film-goers were experiencing for 80 short minutes.

"They'll be coming out soon," Rigsby said quietly and said no more. From the look on his face, flushed in the quiet, cold night, his demeanor seemed different from publicity-hungry organizers seeking support. Written on the eye-popping picture behind him were small words at the bottom that read, "For The Silent," the name of the 501c3 nonprofit he and his wife, Julie, 25, started two years ago. Mrs. Rigsby is a Tyler Junior College graduate.

"For The Silent is an advocacy organization," he said. "We look for projects that need funding. Julie and I have been to Cambodia, visiting ministries to children being rescued from the sex trade."

The pair returned from Cambodia in October where they met children freed from the trade.

"The experience of seeing child slavery can be completely overwhelming," he said. "We met a 10-year-old boy that had been used in the sex trade for several years. But when you meet the rescued children and see their hope, it's even more amazing. When you see children react to the heart of God and step out, the hope and power of redemption in their lives, that's also overwhelming."

One 15-year-old girl had been trapped in a brothel since she was 11, he said, before being rescued.

"She lives in the safe house now, and she told us said she sees herself now as a lotus flower. The thing about a lotus flower is that it grows out of a dirty, murky pond, but turns into something beautiful."

Rigsby also led a team of volunteers with For The Silent to assess assistance needed to the ministries directly involved with rescuing children from the horror of sexual abuse.

"We spent a few days in a safe home with children living there from 4 to 18 years old rescued from brothels, getting medical care and education, and the staff gives the older ones options. One day we just spend painting and playing with them. They're learning to be happy again."

On his table were some items for sale -- cloth-like purses and bags, and some small paintings one might see at a county fair contest for elementary school children. But these paintings cost hundreds of dollars.

"That's because these paintings are done by those children rescued from brothels," he explained, "All the money, 100 percent, goes to helping those children through those ministries."

For The Silent has an office in the Austin State Bank building in downtown Tyler. The staff consists of seven part-time volunteers and two unpaid full-time staff. The organization's Web site is www.forthesilent.org.

"The goal of For The Silent is being a voice for those who do not have a voice and mobilize people to use their areas of influence and partner with organizations for what they can do for those in need," Rigsby said.

And his goal for area churches?

"There are different ways to get involved. Find projects that need funding. Organize a "something" for the silent, like a "Run For The Silent" or "Concert For The Silent" or a 'whatever' For The Silent. Take the mandate to pray and get involved."

Cambodia's children calling 'Sophy' home

Thu, Apr. 24, 2008
By KARA LOPP
klopp@charlotteobserver.com
Charlotte Observer (North Carolina, USA)

MINT HILL --When Mory Om returned to her native Cambodia in 2001 after a 10-year absence, she didn't like what she saw.

"There were children walking around the streets naked with nothing to eat," she said. "When I was walking down the street, I was wondering `What was I to do?' "

Now after two more trips to Cambodia -- this time with Christian missionary groups -- she's figured out how she can help.

Om, called "Sophy" by her American friends, will leave her Mint Hill home next month to open an orphanage in Cambodia.

The store where she works, Home-Styles Gallery, which houses 50 vendors selling ladies accessories and housewares, is helping the effort by collecting money and children's over-the-counter medicines.

She's partnering with Warm Blankets Orphan Care International, a nonprofit Christian mission, to build the orphanage. But she still needs money for furniture, classroom supplies, food and more.

Cambodia is an Asian country bordered by Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. It was a happy place to grow up, said Om, 49.

But civil war in the 1970s ravaged the country -- and her family. One of 11 siblings, Om became separated from all but one brother, one sister and her mother. The four moved to the Charlotte area in 1991. She doesn't know what became of her other siblings.

Her younger siblings were sent to work in other parts of Cambodia, she said. Her father died in 1972.

During the war, Om was forced to farm and given meager food rations. Sometimes one scoop of rice was given for 20 people, she said.

After the war, she moved to the United States in 1981.

'Give them a good life'

Many of Om's co-workers at HomeStyles didn't know the passion she had for Cambodian orphans until recently, said vendor Susie Shoemaker, who sells makeup at the store.A former clinical nurse specialist, Om has had an alterations booth at HomeStyles for two years.

Om was nervous but she recently spoke to the store's 49 other vendors about her dream, explaining why she was leaving. When she did, the usually chatty, flamboyant women were stiff and silent, and many were crying, Shoemaker said.

"She has a heart, oh my goodness," Shoemaker said of Om, placing her hand over her heart. "If you hear her tell you about it, then you know what you're backing."

Shoemaker said she admires Om for leaving the frills of the U.S. behind.

"She's been here for so long and she's lived the good life," she said.

Describing herself as an independent woman, Om said she doesn't care about material comforts -- just her country's children. She will leave behind her boyfriend, brother and sister when she goes to Cambodia. Her mother died in 1999. She doesn't have any children.

"It's to save the children's hope and future," she said.

She already has the land where she can build her orphanage.

On her third trip to Cambodia in 2004, she bought one partially wooded acre, in the Kaoh Kong Province southwest of Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. The land is across from an established orphanage that teaches sports skills, she said. She paid $2,300, she said.

The established orphanage is run by Buddhists and its staff didn't want Om's help because she is a Christian, she said.

There's a small house on the property, complete with an outhouse. Her cousin is looking after the property now.

Om wants her center to focus on teaching children English. If Cambodians know English, they can make a good living as translators for missionaries or tourists, she said. Now many orphans live in landfills, where Om said she once saw a fight over one can of soda.

"If you give them English it's just like you give them a good life," she said.

Om admits her own English isn't perfect. She gets words confused --such as kitchen and chicken -- but she has the training, and passion, to help. She has been taking classes at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College toward an education degree.

But Cambodia is suffering now. The price of rice and basic supplies is at least double what it was since Om's trip to Cambodia last year, she said.

If she were anyone else, she wouldn't go to Cambodia now, Om said.

"If you were me you might cancel. I should've cancelled, it's a bad situation. But what I would like to say is trust in the Lord and obey his will.

"It's been my goal and my dream," she said.

Want to help?

HomeStyles Gallery, 11237 Lawyers Road, is collecting children's over-the-counter medicines and money for Mory "Sophy" Om to open an orphanage in Cambodia. To donate, stop by the store, open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Donations also can be mailed to: Cambodian Mission Church c/o St. John's United Methodist Church, 4305 Monroe Road, Charlotte, NC 28205

On the Web

Visit Om's blog at:
www.theorphanageproject2007.blogspot.com

A NightLight for Bangkok's sex slave women [including 9-12-year-old Cambodian prostitutes]

4/1/08
By Julie Ascosi
The Mountain Echo (Maryland, USA)
(Student newspaper of Mount St Mary's University)

She was a 12-year-old Cambodian prostitute in Bangkok. While others her age may be selling flowers or shining shoes to make money, she was "going with the men". But she was not alone.

American missionary Annie Dieselberg discovered there were four girls, ages 9-12 who were in the sex trade and eventually there was a bust. The girls were sent back to Cambodia. But within a few months they were back at the bars. All but one. The fourth girl was gang-raped at the border and disappeared. Within a short time, two more girls disappeared and were under the care of a Danish man somewhere in Bangkok.

"Those events gave me a vision to start a children's center," Dieselberg said. Dieselberg hoped to start a ministry that would be a light in the midst of the dark reality of sex tourism in Bangkok.

About 12,000 children per year are trafficked for sexual exploitation in South East Asia, mostly to Thailand according to research by the International Labor Organization (ILO). But children are not the only ones being exploited.

"[I discovered] that there were large numbers of women trafficked from Eastern Europe and Central Asia in this other area of town," Dieselberg said. "Their issues were not being addressed either and I began to pray for opportunities to help them."

Dieselberg and her husband had worked in various ministries in Thailand for years, reaching out to prostitutes, but Dieselberg felt called to something more.

"I was bursting with vision but there was no room for it in the other ministry. That ministry was well established and I finally realized that God did not want me to stay in that setting but to take the vision He had given me and begin a new work," Dieselberg said.

Dieselberg left her ministry and spent a couple months in prayer and fasting.

"At the end of that time, I came together with four other women who were seeking ways to minister with women in prostitution," Dieselberg said. These women had been part-time volunteers with another organization but had left, hoping to start something new and soon embraced Dieselberg's idea to light the way for the prostitutes.

A Light Shines in the Darkness

In the West a nightlight gives comfort to children and lights the way to safety. Acting on her vision and playing off of this imagery, Dieselberg established NightLight in 2005 in Bangkok, Thailand. NightLight doubles as a business and ministry. Specifically the ministry reaches out to women and children working in the bar areas of Nana/Sukhumvit. While most organizations for prostitutes focus on vocational training and discipleship, NightLight is unique as a for-profit ministry that reaches both women and children in prostitution and trafficking regardless of their ethnicity or place of origin.

"We believe that the women most urgently need a decent job," Dieselberg said.

As a registered Thai business, NightLight makes a profit by selling the jewelry that the Thai women have been taught to design and make. They sell the jewelry online at www.nightlightbangkok.com and through a network of churches throughout Thailand and the U.S. By providing the women with a job complete with good wages and benefits and providing assistance to children, NightLight helps them stay out of prostitution and move forward.

But NightLight is much more than just a business.

"Deep down, we believe that they have other more significant needs…Our program includes then the other areas which they need healing and restoration such as spiritual, family, wounds, physical, education, training, and financial," Dieselberg said.

There are eight paid staff, six of whom are Thais, and more are being added to their number. In addition to the eight are about twelve more staff who establish trusting relationships with the women and children in the bar areas in order to provide them with alternatives and assistance.

In Thailand, trafficking is a 500 billion baht (U.S. $15.3 billion) annual business, which is 50%- 60% of the government's annual budget and more lucrative than the drug trade according to the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. In addition, a study published by the ILO, says that the sex industry accounts for between 2% and 14% of the countries' gross domestic product. It is no wonder that the authorities are hesitant to get involved in stopping such a lucrative business.

In addition, alleged corruption and apathy among police can be disheartening to those trying to help especially in emergency situations.

"One time, I witnessed a woman being held at knifepoint by a man. She was crying and resisting. As she was across the street, I looked around for assistance. Behind us was a [man] who was watching but not doing a thing. I asked him if he was going to do anything to help her and he said, 'It's just his girl.'" Dieselberg said. "I laid into him but he was nonplussed and just walked away. The woman was dragged into a car and driven off."

Despite attempts at befriending various cops who often attend the bars, situations such as these have taught Dieselberg and her staff to rely on reputable links who know who to best turn to for help.

Christmas in Cambodia is a dangerous, exhilarating time

Saturday, December 29, 2007
By June Seabaugh
Southeast Missourian (USA)

Editor's note: June Seabaugh is an occasional columnist for the Southeast Missourian. She is from the area but is currently teaching English in Cambodia.

It's two days after Christmas, and I think I'd like to tell you about a "cool event" among my holiday memories this year. Then I'll try to share about one of my student's lives so you can understand why I'm so excited to be here.

On Christmas Eve I went caroling with the boys and girls from the Asian Hope orphanages. Since we're in Cambodia, we definitely were not caroling on the streets. So 25 of us squeezed into a school van. We headed to the houses of some of the missionaries whose children attend my school. At each house they unlocked their security gates and we sang our medley of songs with children perched in palm trees in 90-degree heat. At one house the old van's side door wouldn't open, and we all climbed over seats to exit the back hatch door. What a hoot!

That was wonderfully spiritual for me, but I think the highlight of the evening was not so spiritual; it was incredibly patriotic for me. After we finished our house caroling, the girls' orphanage supervisors wanted me to get to see the American embassy since it was lit up for Christmas. We dropped off the boys (who'd already seen the display) and went to the U.S. Embassy.

I really believe that they'd managed to put a light bulb on every blade of grass, every palm leaf, and every edge of every roof. No, there was no manger or Nativity scene, no baby Jesus or anything religious, but America was proud of the holiday enough to have lighted Santas, sleighs, poinsettias, snowmen, reindeer, two-story trees and just plain ol' palm trees lit in myriad colors. Yeah, there were guards in case terrorists took a notion to destroy it, but it was kind of fun to see America enjoying its display of power and wealth.

No other embassy put out a single string of lights, not Canadian, British, European or Australian. But America celebrated Christmas in Cambodia. Our little group found a missionary family from our school and we sang our little hearts out in Christmas carols under the Cambodian sky. I laughed that I ought to be singing "I'm Proud to Be an American," but I still like living on Earth too much to do that here.

My Canadian friends razzed me about my tax dollars being burned. Maybe we're stupid to do something so outlandishly extravagant, but I was proud of us. I would have been happier to see a manger scene, but I still sang myself happy. I didn't have my family around me, but I had America's lights and our group's songs raised to worship our Savior -- and I had fun!

And now for the reason I'm here: It's to share the gospel with people like Srey*, one of my seniors in high school. When Srey was 5, she lived among rice fields with her parents, a younger sister, Kiri*, and a baby brother. Srey's mother had TB. Srey remembers that one day her father came home from gambling again, and her mother cried to him that she would rather be dead. An hour or so later two men came, shot at Srey's dad and missed, but killed her mother. Srey and Kiri were taken to live with their uncle and his family. She has not seen her father or brother since then and doesn't know where they are.

After a year of living with their uncle's family (where they were miserably abused) at the edge of Phnom Penh, the Funcinpec party tried to take over the government. As their house burned, Srey, Kiri and their uncle's family ran to take shelter in a Chinese man's house. Bullets whizzed by and bombs exploded around them. About 50 people hid there for two days, but one night soldiers from the Cambodian People's Party came and ordered them to leave, saying there were spies among them. That's when the miracle happened that changed Srey's life.

A new neighborhood woman from another country had been telling her neighbors about Jesus. Srey prayed to him that night as she listened to the bullets and bombs going off, smelled the smoke of burning buildings and watched the two neighboring gas stations explode. She prayed, and she remembers stepping on a grenade as she walked. She says she saw it, but didn't have time to stop. She felt it under her foot, but it didn't go off. She knows she received a miracle.

Later, the neighbor found the two sisters and adopted them, along with four other Cambodian children, before the adoption laws in Cambodia changed in 2004 and essentially stopped Westerners from adopting Cambodian children. Two days before the law changed, the adoptions were finalized. Because her mom is from another country, Srey will attend college there next year. She will study accounting.

By the way, Srey's hard-praying Christian family sees a lot of miracles. Four years ago the children in the family didn't want their mother to take in a baby whose parents had died of AIDS and who also was dying of AIDS. They just didn't want to face watching another child die. But, in Srey's simple words, "We could not ignore him."

Today he's one of their adopted children, and the tests during 2007 have all come back negative for HIV/AIDS. He's a happy, healthy 4-year-old.

These are the children I teach. And Srey's mother is one of the many missionaries whose children I teach. I get to hear their miracle stories and be a part of their miraculous lives, and I realize each day how miraculous life is for each one of us.

I pray that you are enjoying the blessings of Christmas as you consider the miraculous birth of our Savior. And I pray that you appreciate the love of God who gave you the miracle of life and then offers the miracle of eternal life.

* Names were changed to protect the girls.

Concerts reach youth in Cambodia with the hope of the Gospel

23 October, 2007
Mission Network News (USA)

Cambodia (TWR/MNN) ― Trans World Radio-Cambodia' s youth department hosted two outdoor concerts over the summer to promote the radio program, "It's Yours!" Attendance surpassed expectations, in spite of rain.

According to TWR, about 700 attended a concert in northern Cambodia, and as many as 1,000 joined the second one at a beach resort. The concerts were designed to reflect the format of an "It's Yours!" program, with interesting information, lighthearted commentary, and just enough about Jesus to whet the listeners' appetites to learn more.

The theme for the events was "True Happiness" and how to have real joy and peace. Active participation was encouraged with prizes such as a TWR t-shirt for those who answered questions like: "What can make you happy for a short time but in the end causes sadness?"

TWR staff performed skits, along with members of a visiting youth group from a Mississippi church. The youth also performed the Christian music for the concerts.

Because of these events, Cambodian churches and youth groups that previously had shown little interest in the ‘It's Yours!' program now are tuning in. Pray that hearts will respond to the hope of the Gospel.

10-year-old moves family to undertake mission trip to Cambodia [- Cambodia is 10-year-old Emily Ankrom's calling]

9/14/2007
By Christie Campbell
Staff writer
chriscam@observer-reporter.com
Observer-Reporter (Washington, PA, USA)

Harry and Miranda Ankrom never hesitated when it came to taking their two children with them on a mission trip to Cambodia.

In fact, it was their 10-year-old daughter, Emily, who inspired her parents to make the trip. She returned from camp telling them she felt God calling her to mission work.

The Washington family left July 1, and it took them 30 hours and four separate flights to get to Cambodia. Their two-week experience was so profound and rewarding that Miranda and Emily plan to return next month.

"God has given us a burden for that land and those people," Miranda said. "Cambodia is now something I feel very passionate about."

Their mission was at an orphanage for 25 children in Siem Reap run by People for Care and Learning. The Christian charity is based in Cleveland, Tenn.

The Ankroms were allowed to take two suitcases apiece. Because they planned to take as much clothing as they could for the orphans as well as material to build a play gym, they managed to pack all their family items into two suitcases. That left them with six suitcases to stuff full of other items for Cambodia, including two swings, small ladders, rope and a canopy.

They packed so much clothing that the orphans, who only had one suitable outfit to wear, all owned at least three nice changes of clothing and a pair of flip flops when the Ankroms left.

"It didn't matter what color they were," Miranda's 11-year-old brother Isaac said of the sandals. "If they were pink the boys would still take them."

The family was surprised to learn that Cambodia had been a civilized and thriving country for years until the 1970s, when Pol Pot came to power. His Khmer Rouge decimated the country, forcing educated urban residents to rural areas to live as peasants. An estimated 2 million people were murdered and family units were torn apart. There would be civil unrest in Cambodia until 2002.

Now, said the Ankroms, the adult population is largely uneducated, but children are starting to learn as schools are being established.

But there is much poverty and homelessness in Cambodia. They witnessed people bathing and drinking from the same streams where livestock drink. Some people live in garbage dumps so foul that toxic smoke can be seen rising from the refuse. Other areas are posted with signs warning of land mines, and it is not unusual to see people with missing limbs. Children as young as 4 years old are sold into prostitution.

One thing the family was not permitted to do on the trip was evangelize. The country is 90 percent Buddhist, and only missionaries who offer humanitarian aid are permitted to enter.

Harry Ankrom is associate pastor of the Christian Church of North America in Washington. He and his wife wanted their children not only to have the experience of a mission trip, but also thought it would benefit the orphans to have other youngsters with whom to play.

Isaac and Emily acclimated very quickly and made friends easily despite the language barrier.

The trip made a lasting impression on Emily. She already has informed her parents of her plans to become a missionary.

"She said when she turns 18, she's moving to Cambodia," her mother said.

The Ankroms are available to speak to groups about their trip and can be reached at www.freewebs.com/ccnafamily.

Cambodian contradiction: Pain, beauty mingle in Southeast Asia

The presence of Westerners in a remote Cambodian village causes a stir with the local children. (Herald photo by Jennifer Roes)

Sunday, August 26, 2007
By Jennifer Roes
Boston Herald (Mass., USA)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Sweet shouts of “Hello!” greet our gaggle of volunteers from Massachusetts as the local kids, surprised to see Westerners so far off the tourist track, try out their limited English. It’s hard at every step to reconcile their openness and desire to learn with the knowledge that many are destined for a life of poverty, assuming they avoid malaria, AIDS and human traffickers.

“It is amazing how people seem so happy who have so little,” said Rachel Schatz, one of eight of us from Park Street Church in Boston who spent two weeks in this mystical but ravaged land in August. “Cambodians are all so generous.”

Our group spent two weeks in Cambodia, teaching English to adult staff members of World Relief, a church-based aid organization. Most of the time, I felt more like the student than the teacher.

The Cambodians I encountered embodied warmth and grace - impressive, considering their recent history. In the last 30 years the country has endured genocide, civil war, rampant government corruption, human trafficking and epidemics of poverty and disease.

Memories of the fantastic colors and textures of market fruits compete in my mind with grim images of piles of skulls at a monument to victims of the Khmer Rouge. Merchants make a thin living selling fine silks and crafts, while a band made up of land-mine survivors struggles for survival playing their music and selling their CDs.

Tourists flock to one of the world’s great architectural feats, Angkor Wat, built by the ancient Khmers around 1100, while Cambodians live in makeshift lean-tos along city streets or, in the country, in one-room huts on stilts.

A typical resident makes less money in six months than many Americans make in a week. Yet my students took us for soup and gave us gifts when we left that could have cost them a day’s wages.

Cambodia’s hope for change lies with nongovernmental organizations like World Relief. Its programs help mothers raise healthy children, teach kids about health and hygiene and give people a chance to start or expand small businesses (information: http://cambodia.wr.org/). There’s much reason to fear for the future of Cambodia. But seeing the excitement of the village children during lessons there, it’s possible to believe there’s reason to hope, too.

Jennifer Roes is a member of the Herald staff.

Cambodia clamp down on missionaries

Jul 17, 2007
Reuters

Predominantly Buddhist Cambodia has barred Christian missionaries from door-to-door proselytizing and handing out leaflets, saying it disturbs people's lives and could create "insecurity in society".

A Ministry of Cults and Religions edict also prohibited the use of cash or other incentives to get people to convert to Christianity.

"All activities disseminating Christianity in public are banned," said the order, which could place unprecedented restrictions on the many Christian groups operating in the war-scarred southeast Asian nation.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose young white-shirted Mormon volunteers are seen regularly cycling around the capital, admitted some missionary groups many employ underhand tactics but denied any wrongdoing on its behalf.

"I think there are some breaches of those rules happening in the country, but not by us," Cambodian mission head Robert Winegar said, without giving details.

"I don't see the action of our missionaries disturbing anyone. Our missionaries do not force any one and we do not pay people to come to our church," he said.

Deputy Cults and Religions Minister Sun Kim Hun said some missionaries working in the provinces had tricked children into converting to Christianity by offering them sugar and money.

"This is against Buddhism, which is unacceptable," he said.

Most of Cambodia's 13 million people are Theravada Buddhist.

Its Muslim and Christian minorities are largely tolerated, although a house church near the Vietnam border was ransacked in 2003 by villagers blaming Christians for a drought.